Thanks Bruce. I'm afraid to say that my plans for world domination are on hold while I figure out how to pay $46000 per year for tuition... On second thought, those plans might help somewhat...

In the mean time, I decided to resume work on one of the more complicated systems in the ship- the hull door/stabiliser actuation system.
I initially planned on using a stepper motor and a threaded bolt to drive a set of spools (see 3D image) In practice though, that was almost impossible to build and operate reliably.. so I changed the design... a few times... This (see picture) is the latest and simplest incarnation of the system. Two servos are used; one to drive an output worm gear (continuous rotation) and the other to move the output gear to any of the 10 spools (three green gears are shown as place-holders). Turning one of the gears will pull on the string that connects it with one of the doors thus opening/closing it. In theory, it should work... once I buy another bunch of gears.

Andery, I stand in awe of what you have been doing on such a small scale. Only 33" long and you have all these working parts. I just discovered this thread and spent the last hour reading it and wondering how such a young man can come up with great ideas on how to do things. With this kind of drive I believe that we will be hearing fantastic things about you after you get out of school. Now that I have found this thread I plan on reading it every few days to follow your progress untill you leave for college.

Thank you very much Hircsailor. To be honest, I have no idea where my ideas come from either... I think the bow thruster system started off on a piece of scrap paper in a hotel room in Barcelona. Most of the key systems and electronics were already planned out before I moved to the US in 2009; whenever I hit a dead end while planning something, I look at my old plans and am usually somewhat disappointed at being outsmarted by the 14-year-old me.

Just a quick update for now: The bow thruster system is fully assembled and I am starting to test the door mechanism around it. Basically, here is a random video:

wow.... 750 days. This build has certainly taken a bit longer than I first expected (or maybe not )

In any case, it seems that I will have to postpone work for another month while I prepare for a trip to Washington DC. Apparently, my science fair project (and 20 page research paper) was good enough to merit finalist status in the Intel Science Talent Search competition. Now I have the pleasure of presenting my work to a bunch of people far smarter than myself... fun times!

Hey, earlier on you were talking about the color of the stabilizer, I found a video that makes them look like they were red... Not sure if you have seen the refit video blog on youtube, but the 2nd video shows the stabilizers color. It seems like it was red (looks like red peeling paint)

It's good to see that the fins are red (seeing as I would probably just ignore the instructions and paint them red anyway out of aesthetic concerns ) The video also has some great shots of the bow thrusters, anchors and azipods; I'll be sure to refer to it during future work.

On the topic of future work, my month-long intermission appears to have paid off. As stated in a local newspaper: "A lifelong fascination with water has helped a [high school] senior win $75,000 and second place in a prestigious national science competition."

Now that this is over, I will, of course, state that I have more time to continue to build just before encountering another major task/project that again deprives me of free time. In the near future, I have no idea when I will make progress nor how much.

It's good to see that the fins are red (seeing as I would probably just ignore the instructions and paint them red anyway out of aesthetic concerns ) The video also has some great shots of the bow thrusters, anchors and azipods; I'll be sure to refer to it during future work.

On the topic of future work, my month-long intermission appears to have paid off. As stated in a local newspaper: "A lifelong fascination with water has helped a [high school] senior win $75,000 and second place in a prestigious national science competition."

Now that this is over, I will, of course, state that I have more time to continue to build just before encountering another major task/project that again deprives me of free time. In the near future, I have no idea when I will make progress nor how much.

That's all for now...

Given what I have seen on this thread, Andrey, the win isn't surprising at all. Congratulations, man, well done. Jeff (much older and less smart)

I just finished reading this thread from the beginning, and It's made me feel quite dumb... haha. Seriously, this is some really amazing work. Big congratulations on your win in DC! That ought to make paying for college a bit less painful. I look forward to watching the rest of this build!

I have the system and protocols working for a way smaller boat then the Seabex: the Kormoran (fully functioning with crane, light, sounds and more). The whole systems works on the principle that the TX is a dumb device which only sends commands, the boat is the smart one. It gets a command and does things according to the mode which it is in (in the Seabex case: position-mode/navigation mode). The main difference between the smaller Kormoran and the Seabex will be (apart from the overkill on functions), that the Seabex will also be sending data back (temperature, battery status and more). Remember, the Xbee devices communicatie 2-ways. I use other devices (nRF24) because of the price, but they work the same. I'm not a professional programmer, just a hobbyist who finds it way by trying and smoking parts.

I will follow your progress, I hope more people will see the possibilites of computer controlling ships. Your imagination is the only limit (and the waterline in our case).

I know this was some time ago you did this, but I am doing something similar.
Not motorising but lighting.

As for removing the hull windows. I'm not using a dremel but am using something similar.

What speed were you sanding at, and what sort of grade sanding drum were you using? I am finding the problem of having to sand that long to punch through is beginning to melt the plastic. Luckily I've not made any major damage so far.

What I've ended up having to do is thinning the plastic as much as possible and then cutting the remainder using a scalpel, needless to say this is taking a lot longer than the method you are using.